Don’t talk trash, Pedro, there is enough of that in our crazy game already...
IMAGINE that. Kelly Clarkson and Pedro Caixinha being mentioned in the same breath. One of them known for facing the cameras week after week, trapped in the tawdry spectacle of trying to win public approval by appealing to the lowest common denominator. The other the very first winner of America’s version of Pop Idol.
Caixinha quoted some of Ms Clarkson’s lyrics in a press conference on Thursday.
‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, as the song says,’ he smiled, reflecting on defeat to Hibernian and causing your average Celtic-minded cybernutter to scream ‘WHIT ABOOT LIQUIDAYSHUUUUUNNNN???’ into their monitor before returning, diligently, to the ascetic pursuit of emailing UEFA, the SPFL and the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the hour, every hour, about EBTs, side letters, Resolution 12 and Dunfermline.
You get the feeling mouthing someone else’s words is hardly new to the Portuguese, though. He didn’t really come up with banning green boots from Rangers himself, did he?
All this ‘we-are-the-people’ rhetoric should be put out to pasture, too — particularly now that Caixinha is slipping it into interviews moments after his side has just been cuffed at home by the team fresh out of the Championship.
Rangers promised transparency under the current regime. This stuff is about as transparent as it gets.
Playing to the gallery, though, has become part of the culture of the club. Dave King strikes a deal with Sports Direct in June to cancel a damaging retail contract, seeing Mike Ashley off the premises.
It is a fantastically positive story on the back of considerable activity in the transfer market, overshadowed completely by the chairman rambling on again about how Celtic are really only on twoin-a-row rather than six-in-a-row because Rangers were on ‘The Journey’ back from Nowheresville for most of it.
If some bloke beside you in the pub starting coming out with this deranged twaddle, you would nod politely, drain your glass and exit speedily before he got on to his pet subject of Peter Lawwell sending subliminal messages through the telly and turning the little men who live inside his head against him.
The two-in-a-row talk serves no real purpose. Celtic fans don’t get angry about it. They, along with everyone else, find it laughable.
Rather like the chaos that surrounded former manager Mark Warburton’s departure. Or the club statement defending the Rangers fans who fought on the pitch at the end of the Scottish Cup final with Hibs. Or ‘Going For 55’. Or King’s apparent flip-flop on the advantage gained from EBTs.
Caixinha, King and others ought to take a look at the reaction from within their own fanbase to the statement issued by Club 1872 this week and reflect. Waggling the blunderbuss at all and sundry like some farmer who has spent a little too long in the cider shed is not always the most effective means of delivering a message.
Club 1872 is the second-biggest shareholder in Rangers. It has offices inside Ibrox and one of its board members is also the club’s company secretary. Other than that, it is completely independent. There is no way, surely, the club would use it to fire its bullets.
Anyway, Club 1872 demanded that Hibs manager Neil Lennon be taken to task by the police over his ‘failed attempt to incite trouble’ at Ibrox eight days ago.
Lennon’s behaviour on the touchline does leave much to be desired at times, but calling the cops to his house for touchline gestures? Talk of sparking off a riot? Spare us, please.
Certainly, many Rangers fans seemed to find the statement a step too far, insulted by the suggestion they would assault Lennon purely because he responded to abuse. He is a pantomime villain at Ibrox and, perhaps foolishly, plays up to it. End of story.
More pressing to many Bluenoses appears to have been a lack of consultation from the boardroom on issues they deem more important — and not just John Beaton’s refereeing from last weekend.
The Union Bears group broke cover on Tuesday, claiming the club had ‘cut off all but essential communication’ with them after discussions over establishing a safe standing area at Ibrox. It accused the board of being ‘unwilling to listen’ to ideas on improving the atmosphere and relying on their ‘unwavering loyalty’ instead.
Within a matter of days of this criticism, it was announced Rangers had commissioned a feasibility study. Improved access for disabled supporters, however, remains another hot conversation topic.
The stadium is being upgraded to give the impression of Rangers being on the move again. Other elements of the club’s public front need upgrading, too.
Caixinha’s spats with Derek McInnes and Lennon are fiendishly entertaining, but doesn’t he come out of them looking petty, claiming he would not invite the Aberdeen boss to his office and allegedly ignoring Lennon and speaking in Portuguese when he did appear there?
Is that really the kind of behaviour Rangers supporters expect from their manager? Are many of them fooled by all this ‘we are the people’, our team is the best and ‘Celtic still need eight to make it Ten-In-A-Row’ stuff?
We’ll soon find out for sure. Unless Rangers go on a winning run and the likes of Carlos Pena and Eduardo Herrera start to show why they cost millions, Pedro can jump up and down on a burning Celtic strip singing Penny Arcade in front of the cameras and it won’t make a blind bit of difference.